With every Jeleria"s word, the situation of that heavenly city was turning more and more complicated. While on the outside, one might think that those facts that she was just uncovering before me didn"t really affect how my task in that city would look like, but with how underdeveloped the societies I found in this world were so far, I could already see various and complicated systems put in place to categorise people by what tribe did they hail for."Wait a moment, there is something I don"t really understand. For all of this to happen, there should be an insanely complicated and deep story behind the events happening on that great continent you mentioned before. Like, if your tribe comes from people that were expelled by the ancestors of the heavenly city current inhabitants, then where did their enemies come from? How come they weren"t the one to expel the first wave of refugees in the first place if they had the strength to defeat those who already bested the first group?"
This question wasn"t something I didn"t really understand. Even in earth history, there were multiple examples of the situation when a tribe conquered a land only to be later pushed back from it. Take English isles, where original Britons were conquered by Romans, who were later pushed back by celts only for them to be bested by normans. The process of nations rising and falling was always ongoing!
But only by asking questions, I could hope for some sort of knowledge that Jeleria didn"t really want to share or maybe even think about doing so could be revealed to me!
"I could be the one to ask you those questions. I know as much about the history of the great content as you knew about the history of this place when you first came here! You need to understand, most of what I know about the past deeds of my own clan comes from the insults spewed by the envoy and his group!"
Raising her voice as if I insulted her, Jeleria took a moment to calm down before she was able to pick up her story back.
"So, right now we have the descendants of let"s call it a second-generation, enslaving all the descendants of the first generation. From how desperate they are in their attempts to enslave all branches of my original clan I think they are looking for some kind of talent they need to return to the continent. Thinking about this, isn"t this a three-way power struggle?"
Just like paper-stone and scissors, one could always best the second one while would always lose to the third one. If that was the case in this situation as well, then where was the influence of the system owner? Looking at how powerful I became thanks to Bonger, it was hard for me to believe that so-called second-generation could still defeat the first one if they were pit against system owner!
"It might look like that on the outside, but we won"t really know their reason unless we dig deeper. Anyway, is there anything else that you could tell me? For example, how many islands this second-generation managed to conquer in the first place?"
While I could learn it already when I would get to the city itself… There was no point in pus.h.i.+ng this matter if I could get the answers right away. Even the fact that this number alone wouldn"t help me locate where Overlord"s island was in the first place, I could at least know how many places I would"ve to visit in order to learn it!
"I"m sorry to break your fun and constructive discussion… But I think you are forgetting about something important."
Out of nowhere, a third voice entered the discussion, albeit only in my head. But what Bonger could want with me right now? It"s not like he was omnipotent to just solve all of my problems right here and now! And even if he could, I already gave my promise and was personally quite curious about how this city looked like from the inside.
*Enlighten me then, my dearest of friends, what did this poor cultivator forget?*
"No need for irony here. I didn"t stop you from placing this promise because as we realised it before, the more you know, the better the effects of increasing your wisdom statistics will be… But going back to the stronghold won"t pose any problem. Just find a place where you could put that d.a.m.ned seed of teleportation and you will get yourself a nice, smooth ride back home!"
f.u.c.k!
I really forgot about it! I intended to connect my stronghold and Overlord"s island in the first place, but with all the events taking place and the rush to finish all the matters before that d.a.m.ned f.u.c.ker would make it even harder, I missed the whole point of going into the island in the first place!
But well, nothing is bad if it ends up well.
*Thanks for reminding me. In the end, I think it will be even better to connect our island with their headquarters directly. Thinking about this, how hard it is to detect the teleportation window? Because if its completely safe, then maybe putting one end right in the city might be an option as well.*
"While I don"t think there is anyone capable of either finding it out if not by accident and even if, then opening it without my or yours help would still border the act of a miracle. But well… We don"t know what awaits us in the city, so I think that keeping the window as the escape route would do us more good than locking it in a populated area that might soon turn into the lair of our next enemy."
In the first place, my wish to arrive on this island was bound to exterminating everyone alive here. Even after it turned out that the situation with this "neighbouring tribe" that the Overlord was in contact with, was not as simple and easy as I took it to be when my knowledge was limited to what I discovered from Helia"s stories, it didn"t change the fact that by crossing the swords with the people who just became my subjects, they ultimately brought the retribution from my hand on themselves!
"There are about forty or fifty different islands that the heavenly city is managing right now. As for which one you want to find… Sorry, but I have no idea how to help you."
With the whole exchange of thoughts with Bonger taking less than a single second, Jeleria didn"t look like she spotted any changes on my face as various emotions struck my mind. Instead, she simply answered my question, while unintentionally hinting that she had nothing else interesting to say.
"Okay then. I will depart to this heavenly city tomorrow. Any ideas about what kind of backstory should I give them? If you was capable of seeing through my disguise, then I doubt those people would have any problems with doing it either."
While there was an option to use my hiding ability to just sneak inside the city, without a proper introduction from someone who had any contact with its citizens, sooner or later, I would be discovered. Without a proper ident.i.ty, instead of hiding amongst the crowd, I would pain a big target on my back!
"Well… You don"t look like one of them nor like one of us. How about claiming to be a survivor from a s.h.i.+pwreck that somehow reached one of the islands and then attempted to reach this place after spotting one of the s.h.i.+ps sailing here?"